City of Djinns

Historian William Dalrymple describes a year in Delhi, the historic capital of India, mixing daily anecdotes with the city's past. Among the people he meets are the Puri family, his driver, a customs officer, British survivors of the Raj, whirling dervishes and eunuch dancers, and he searches out the history behind the Mahabharata epics. He explores the seven dead cities of Delhi and the eighth, the modern one, guided by the legend of the djinns, spirits of fire said to ensure the city's rebirth however often it is destroyed. He also finds evidence of violence, from the 1857 mutiny to the Partition massacres of 1947 and the riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984.

Mohnish Pabrai calls it an awesome way to see both Delhi's present and its past.